With increasing automation of offices it has become commonplace for desks or workstations to require an electricity supply outlet and/or a telephone connection and/or one or more signal cable connections to data processing or other equipment.
The provision of such services to a desk or other workstation at a particular location in a building usually presents problems. The problems are exacerbated when, for example, the workstation is in an open plan, broadloom carpeted area in a modern concrete floored high-rise office building.
It has been practiced to lay metal underfloor ducts prior to pouring concrete flooring during building construction. Such ducts are costly to manufacture and install and are usually widely spaced in the poured floor to keep floor ducting costs to a minimum.
Access to ducts embedded in concrete floors generally requires taking up of any carpet. Access may then be gained via access trenches at predetermined locations or by undersirable jackhammer penetration of the concrete floor.
Because ducts provided on a contingency basis during building construction tend to be widely spaced, it is rare that duct access is available close to an exact location where services are required. Consequently either a desk must be moved to a location adjacent a service duct or else, a cable must be run from the nearest duct to the desk over carpet or between carpet and floor.
If the building is provided with a ceiling space in which service cables may be run then the service must be brought from the ceiling down to a workstation. That is generally unslightly especially in large open plan areas or requires over carpet cable from a vertical duct or pillar. In all such systems it is undesirable that AC power cables run in the same duct as communication cables, both for safety reasons and to reduce pick-up in communication cables of hum or spikes from the power cables.
It is therefore generally difficult to avoid an unsightly tangle of communication and power cables in the vicinity of work stations while provided adequate segregation of services.
An object of the present invention is to provide a method of, and apparatus for, ducting cables which alleviates at least some of the disadvantages of the above discussed systems.